Company Fined $60,000 After Worker Injured By Conveyor

Court Bulletin

Company Fined $60,000 After Worker Injured By Conveyor

TORONTO, ON - Mondelez Canada Inc., a maker of biscuits and confectionery, pleaded guilty and was fined $60,000 after a worker was injured while cleaning an overhead conveyor on a cookie production line.

On January 20, 2014, at the company's manufacturing operation at 5 Bermondsey Road in Toronto, workers from a contracted company called New Way Building Services Inc. were on site to clean the machines on a cookie production line.

A worker from New Way was cleaning an overhead conveyor on the production line when the worker's arm was drawn into a roller on the conveyor system. This resulted in injuries to the worker.

A Ministry of Labour inspector determined that the overhead conveyor on the line was not stopped when the worker was cleaning the line. Therefore, Mondelez Canada Inc. failed to ensure that the measures and procedures prescribed by section 75(a) of Ontario Regulation 851/90 - the Industrial Establishments Regulation - were carried out at a workplace, contrary to section 25(1)(c) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act. That section of the regulation states that "a part of a machine, transmission machinery, device or thing shall be cleaned, oiled, adjusted, repaired or have maintenance work performed on it only when motion that may endanger a worker has stopped."

The company pleaded guilty and was fined $60,000 by Justice of the Peace Mohammed Brihmi in Toronto court on December 4, 2015.

In addition to the fine, the court imposed a 25-per-cent victim fine surcharge as required by the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.